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Posted
30 minutes ago, GhostOfTomJoad said:

His roommate/romantic interest is apparently transition. Ergo, all transgenders are domestic terrorists. It all adds up in Trumplandia.

It's contagious. 

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Posted
32 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

We had posters in the Harris/Walz thread talking about how it was a brilliant move to "shore up the base".  All the heavy lifting had been done so time to get the base aligned and cruise to victory.  Fucking dumbasses.  You could feel the energy leave the campaign as soon as she did that "Call me Dipshit" podcast.

 

This is incorrect. That podcast was a great idea, considering how many followers that podcaster has.

 

The air left the campaign in three instances:

- When they stopped called them “weird” 

- When they diddled around about going on Rogan

- When they started catering to moderate Rs and doing more stuff with them than with the bases they needed (college students, etc.)

 

The first one is the fault of the old dem guard, but the second one really is the fault of Rogan. Kamala’s campaign and the dems got played by Rogan and didn’t have a good comeback, so they just let it go. The third instance is 100% the fault of the campaign, although now I’m wondering if they saw the internals and panicked.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Yes, let’s rehash why she lost again. Meanwhile, the fascists are taking over the country. But by all means, let’s have this argument. 

 

 

It’s either that or keep rehashing why Arch looks like ass…

 

We are going to rehash something on this website!

 

 

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Posted
16 minutes ago, Pancho said:

 

My problem with sports now is the same J6 folks, radical republicans, maga-tards, and Fat Boy fans who use the n-word and say disparaging things about Blacks, Women, LGBTQ, Latinos, and the like are sitting in the stands cheering on those same folks for their personal gain in the sports world—our fans included.

 

 

 

Posted

She lost because TPUSA and others mobilized young white men and have been working on them for years to support Trump. If he survives till 2026, I don’t see anything changing unless the non voters get the fuck up and vote democrat. The cult is gonna cult.

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Posted
13 minutes ago, Pancho said:

 

This is incorrect. That podcast was a great idea, considering how many followers that podcaster has.

 

The air left the campaign in three instances:

- When they stopped called them “weird” 

- When they diddled around about going on Rogan

- When they started catering to moderate Rs and doing more stuff with them than with the bases they needed (college students, etc.)

 

The first one is the fault of the old dem guard, but the second one really is the fault of Rogan. Kamala’s campaign and the dems got played by Rogan and didn’t have a good comeback, so they just let it go. The third instance is 100% the fault of the campaign, although now I’m wondering if they saw the internals and panicked.

Trump won the election because he won in a landslide with people who pay zero attention to news or politics. Seriously he won those people by something ridiculous like 35%. All the "hurr durr, I guess I'd like eggs a little cheaper so sure I'll vote for Trump" people, having no idea what that really meant. I don't want to put too much blame on Team Harris but they did a poor job of finding these people and sufficiently explaining what a Trump presidency would look like (this fucking hellscape we're living in now). 

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Posted
Just now, Goofyboy said:

She lost because TPUSA and others mobilized young white men and have been working on them for years to support Trump. If he survives till 2026, I don’t see anything changing unless the non voters get the fuck up and vote democrat. The cult is gonna cult.

I think that, much like Covid-19 was a huge event that threw MAGA's best laid plans off course, the thing that likely ushers in Newsom in 2028 is the AI bubble pop and the big recession/depression that follows. That's the likely trajectory and hope. Right now AI-powered stock market is the only thing keeping most non-liberal (center-left/center all the way to the far reaches of the alt-right) from caring too much about the near daily erosions of the republic.

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Posted
3 minutes ago, Red Five said:

Trump won the election because he won in a landslide with people who pay zero attention to news or politics. Seriously he won those people by something ridiculous like 35%. All the "hurr durr, I guess I'd like eggs a little cheaper so sure I'll vote for Trump" people, having no idea what that really meant. I don't want to put too much blame on Team Harris but they did a poor job of finding these people and sufficiently explaining what a Trump presidency would look like (this fucking hellscape we're living in now). 

This is exactly right. That is why to my previous post, when Covid-19 happened and ruined their lives initially, there was a change. I think an AI bubble pop to the economy will be another similiar change agent to usher in D's for 2028. 

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Posted

It’s not a hellscape for them yet. They voted for this. Get the brown people out, attack the trans and gays, and push evangelical religion. This is their wet dream. Farmers are crying - who cares - Trump is playing 6D chess.

We are living in two completely different realities. MAGA world is not the same world we see.

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Posted
1 minute ago, Goofyboy said:

It’s not a hellscape for them yet. They voted for this. Get the brown people out, attack the trans and gays, and push evangelical religion. This is their wet dream. Farmers are crying - who cares - Trump is playing 6D chess.

We are living in two completely different realities. MAGA world is not the same world we see.

100% this. And I think, much to the benefit of everyone involved, people are starting to wake up to the reality of "what is" and meeting the situation where it actually is, versus living in the ivory tower of the "ought" and hand-wringing on how bad everyone is in theory and if they'd just wake up and see things our way, then we'd live in harmony. It's about growing a backbone and a stomach for a fight. Which is why Newsom is going to be the man in 28. (I'll take it to the Newsom thread now lol)

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Posted

Although.... we have a President saying he doesn't care about political violence as long as it doesn't come from the left, and that if he doesn't like your tv show he'll take it off the air. 100% of people should be horrified, as opposed to "some republicans may be souring on the future of the country...." But, baby steps I guess.

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Posted
11 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

So, an interesting new trend: https://www.kvue.com/article/news/nation-world/new-poll-republicans-sour-on-path-for-us/507-8b3ce73e-357a-4ae5-9854-9147855b20d9?tbref=hp

I'll highlight the point that I find a bit interesting.

I find the shift really interesting, and the potential reason for it REALLY interesting.

We have a thread on here referring to the GOP as a "Trumpist death cult."  And there's something to that.  There is a strong thread of nihilism running through the movement; it's a "blow it all up," "inflict maximum pain on the other" kind of movement.  They're posing for smiling pictures at the "Alligator Alcatraz" sign, we all know that "the cruelty is the point," that sort of thing.  And, it's easy to fall into that worldview when you see yourself as The Main Character.  These are things you/your side DOES, they are NOT things that are done to you.

But the problem with "blowing it all up" (economy, education, all institutions, etc.), is that you live in the thing that you are blowing up.  So when that bomb of chaos that you've been cheering on blows up, you end up looking like this:

pancho096.jpg

And a parallel problem is with the cruelty, and the casually inflammatory attacks on "the other" (invaders, vermin, democrats are terrorists who must be eliminated), etc. is that it lights a fuse of violence.  Those of us NOT in MAGA land have seen it and sounded the alarm about it for years, particularly after signature events done in furtherance of the cause: El Paso, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Colorado Springs, the Hortmans, and on and on.  But not only does MAGA not care, they actually liked it.  Because functionally, all of the political violence was taking out "the other" or their enemies.  Why should they mind, the people they hate are getting what they deserve!

But again....the "political violence" bomb is NOT a carefully controlled explosion.  It is grenades repeatedly tossed into society as a whole.  And, eventually, the shrapnel from those grenades blows back on the people cheering them on.  Create an atmosphere that incites increasing political violence?  Well, they're fine with it.....so long as only "the other/the enemy" is the victim.  But....when the storm of violence comes to them, and one of their own....well, that changes things.

I am not taking the position that Charlie Kirk's murder was a good thing.  Not at all.  I have never, ever wanted our country to descend into political violence -- FFS, I've spent a decade being a cassandra about "fucking stop it, people, because this is the INEVITABLE outcome of where we're headed!"  I didn't want El Paso to happen, I didn't want Charlie Kirk's murder to happen.  None of it.  Instead, what I'm observing is that my observation and warning that "this ends in bloodshed" includes a footnote of "and you can't perfectly control where and how it goes, and it WILL get messy."  

And perhaps what the polling above is showing that once the fantasy world that some MAGAs have constructed -- where they can spew rage, hate, and anger, inciting and inflicting pain and violence willy-nilly -- turns into reality, which is messy, ugly, and involves bloodshed and death....some of them may lose their stomach for it.  It's all fun and games when we get to hate brown people and laugh about them being shackled, and not care (or only care in the most cursory of fashions) when they get slaughtered in a Wal-Mart because hey, they're invaders.  It's quite different when you realize that the beast of "stochastic terrorist violence" ultimately turns on you and yours, and can't be controlled, and that beast causes some awful, messy shit, in a society that you really, really want to be clean and pretty and well-functioning.  The ultimate lesson being that if you think society is too messy and chaotic, the solution isn't to inject hyper-chaos into the system; it's to do the long, slow, and hard work of cleaning up the mess and chaos.

MAYBE some of these people are seeing that, across the board, "make everything more chaotic" is both counterproductive as a whole, and causes harm and pain to the very people who have cheered it on.  I dunno.  Hoping that a group of people realize that "cause pain and blow everything up" is a terrible idea because we all live here together is an act of pure hopefulness, which y'all know ain't my bag.  But, I'm observing that COULD be part of what's reflected in this polling.

Or fuck, I dunno, the guy at the end asks the right question: Is Kirk the straw that breaks the camel's back or sets off a powder keg?  Thus far, the evidence we're seeing is that it set off a powder keg (one that MAGA has long-had primed, and they were eagerly waiting for the opportunity to light its fuse).  But that's the near-term, and certainly the action that the admin is taking.  But long-term....what are we going to see?  Which direction are the American people - or at least this important subset of them - going to go?

Stay tuned to find out.  But not to ABC or a Tegna station.

I see another possible, and in my mind more likely, direction. They are seeing things not going well and then you have a murder of a right wing podcaster that reflects many of their beliefs, after which they are told by dear leader that all the violence and bad things in their life is from the left. This, in turn, makes these people think that the left must be extinguished as the only solution to this violence. 

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Posted
7 minutes ago, Red Five said:

Although.... we have a President saying he doesn't care about political violence as long as it doesn't come from the left, and that if he doesn't like your tv show he'll take it off the air. 100% of people should be horrified, as opposed to "some republicans may be souring on the future of the country...." But, baby steps I guess.

 

3 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

I see another possible, and in my mind more likely, direction. They are seeing things not going well and then you have a murder of a right wing podcaster that reflects many of their beliefs, after which they are told by dear leader that all the violence and bad things in their life is from the left. This, in turn, makes these people think that the left must be extinguished as the only solution to this violence. 

Y'all ain't wrong.  Those are the two options: (1) broad-spectrum political violence causes those who once liked it to lose their taste for it, or (2) it galvanizes them in amping up the violence and seeking the extermination of their enemies.  That's the question raised by the Republican quoted at the end of that article.  Some of them get it.

The regime has unquestionably opted for option 2.  I acknowledge that, no argument, I always thought they would.  The question is whether their supporters (or a chunk of them) instead choose option 1.  That remains to be seen.

If all they asked in their heads was "if we're shooting them, is that a problem?", methinks their answer was often "nope, no problem."

But now, maybe they're asking the question "if we're shooting each other, is that a problem?" then maybe some of them are pausing to consider.

"Extermination of your enemies" sounds fun, because you get to do the exterminating, and your enemies get to do the dying.  I mean, it at least sounds fun to simple people, driven by their rage/anger etc.

"Civil war" ultimately sounds less fun, especially when you get the slightest taste of it, because you realize in that game, EVERYONE joins in on the dying.

Posted (edited)

In Trump's America you can gleefully vote for a lying rapist instead of a decent person, and you can see Charlie Kirk as a saint because those grimy spots are permanent on the back of this leopard. It's who the US is.

There is no, if they only understood. They do. They vote it. They do so in certainty of their righteous hate and embrace of ignorance while lying to themselves the whole way.

If you can be persuaded that transexuals are a violent terrorist movement, you can't be persuaded that your whole sense of reality is a lie.

I harp. I'll stop or try to. It's hard not to obsess about the train on the middle of a collapsing bridge.

Edited by RomaVicta
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Posted
46 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

So, an interesting new trend: https://www.kvue.com/article/news/nation-world/new-poll-republicans-sour-on-path-for-us/507-8b3ce73e-357a-4ae5-9854-9147855b20d9?tbref=hp

I'll highlight the point that I find a bit interesting.

I find the shift really interesting, and the potential reason for it REALLY interesting.

We have a thread on here referring to the GOP as a "Trumpist death cult."  And there's something to that.  There is a strong thread of nihilism running through the movement; it's a "blow it all up," "inflict maximum pain on the other" kind of movement.  They're posing for smiling pictures at the "Alligator Alcatraz" sign, we all know that "the cruelty is the point," that sort of thing.  And, it's easy to fall into that worldview when you see yourself as The Main Character.  These are things you/your side DOES, they are NOT things that are done to you.

But the problem with "blowing it all up" (economy, education, all institutions, etc.), is that you live in the thing that you are blowing up.  So when that bomb of chaos that you've been cheering on blows up, you end up looking like this:

pancho096.jpg

And a parallel problem is with the cruelty, and the casually inflammatory attacks on "the other" (invaders, vermin, democrats are terrorists who must be eliminated), etc. is that it lights a fuse of violence.  Those of us NOT in MAGA land have seen it and sounded the alarm about it for years, particularly after signature events done in furtherance of the cause: El Paso, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Colorado Springs, the Hortmans, and on and on.  But not only does MAGA not care, they actually liked it.  Because functionally, all of the political violence was taking out "the other" or their enemies.  Why should they mind, the people they hate are getting what they deserve!

But again....the "political violence" bomb is NOT a carefully controlled explosion.  It is grenades repeatedly tossed into society as a whole.  And, eventually, the shrapnel from those grenades blows back on the people cheering them on.  Create an atmosphere that incites increasing political violence?  Well, they're fine with it.....so long as only "the other/the enemy" is the victim.  But....when the storm of violence comes to them, and one of their own....well, that changes things.

I am not taking the position that Charlie Kirk's murder was a good thing.  Not at all.  I have never, ever wanted our country to descend into political violence -- FFS, I've spent a decade being a cassandra about "fucking stop it, people, because this is the INEVITABLE outcome of where we're headed!"  I didn't want El Paso to happen, I didn't want Charlie Kirk's murder to happen.  None of it.  Instead, what I'm observing is that my observation and warning that "this ends in bloodshed" includes a footnote of "and you can't perfectly control where and how it goes, and it WILL get messy."  

And perhaps what the polling above is showing that once the fantasy world that some MAGAs have constructed -- where they can spew rage, hate, and anger, inciting and inflicting pain and violence willy-nilly -- turns into reality, which is messy, ugly, and involves bloodshed and death....some of them may lose their stomach for it.  It's all fun and games when we get to hate brown people and laugh about them being shackled, and not care (or only care in the most cursory of fashions) when they get slaughtered in a Wal-Mart because hey, they're invaders.  It's quite different when you realize that the beast of "stochastic terrorist violence" ultimately turns on you and yours, and can't be controlled, and that beast causes some awful, messy shit, in a society that you really, really want to be clean and pretty and well-functioning.  The ultimate lesson being that if you think society is too messy and chaotic, the solution isn't to inject hyper-chaos into the system; it's to do the long, slow, and hard work of cleaning up the mess and chaos.

MAYBE some of these people are seeing that, across the board, "make everything more chaotic" is both counterproductive as a whole, and causes harm and pain to the very people who have cheered it on.  I dunno.  Hoping that a group of people realize that "cause pain and blow everything up" is a terrible idea because we all live here together is an act of pure hopefulness, which y'all know ain't my bag.  But, I'm observing that COULD be part of what's reflected in this polling.

Or fuck, I dunno, the guy at the end asks the right question: Is Kirk the straw that breaks the camel's back or sets off a powder keg?  Thus far, the evidence we're seeing is that it set off a powder keg (one that MAGA has long-had primed, and they were eagerly waiting for the opportunity to light its fuse).  But that's the near-term, and certainly the action that the admin is taking.  But long-term....what are we going to see?  Which direction are the American people - or at least this important subset of them - going to go?

Stay tuned to find out.  But not to ABC or a Tegna station.

 

44 minutes ago, Red Five said:

That's the most positive Brisket post I have read in about 10 years. 

_F5X1X.gif

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Posted

MSNBC intro: "The FCC chairman warns that Jimmy Kimmel won't be the last, as President Trump cracks down on comedians who make jokes at his expense. What does this mean for free speech?" 

I give it one week before cable news has panels debating whether the president should not only be able to cancel tv programs he doesn't like, but whether he should be able to deport their hosts as well afterwards.

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Posted
23 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

 

If you can be persuaded that transexuals are a violent terrorist movement, you can't be persuaded that your whole sense of reality is a lie.

Stealing this

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Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

"Civil war" ultimately sounds less fun, especially when you get the slightest taste of it, because you realize in that game, EVERYONE joins in on the dying.

Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR, Eisenhower, JFK, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr, Clinton, Bush Jr, Obama, Trump, and Biden.

Know something these US presidents all have in common? 

eta, I'll spoil the answer:

Spoiler

They have all gone on record as saying "the greatest threat to America comes not from abroad, but from within."

 

What we got ain't nothing new. It ain't all waiting on us.

 

Edited by Vegas64
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Posted

 

Quote

At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?-- Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!--All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

Lincoln

Posted

The Sad Clown Show Comes For Jimmy Kimmel

As our Free Speech becomes "Me Speech"

https://mattlabash.substack.com/p/the-sad-clown-show-comes-for-jimmy

Quote

Sometimes, when I’m feeling spiritually adrift, I turn to girl supergroups of the eighties for guidance. Which naturally leads me to Exposé, and their 1988 hit single “Seasons Change, People Change.” Was I a fan of the actual songcraft or of their tinny synth-pop sound? Of course not. I’m a man, for crap’s sake. Back in my formative eighties years, I liked to listen to Zeppelin, preferably something with a heavy backbeat like “When the Levee Breaks” or “Black Dog.” You know, things you could listen to in good conscience with your bros while riding in a van with an airbrushed howling-coyote-under-a-full-moon on the side. As all Men of Refined Taste in the eighties did.

But I’ll be damned if those girl prophets didn’t speak to me with their musical treatise on time and human nature. Yes indeed, sisters. You nailed it! Seasons do change. People do change. Roughly a quarter of the people in my life are unrecognizable, both politically and morally, from 15 years ago. And maybe I am too, because I kinda despise them for it. Not because I give a rip about politics or party dynamics. But because I do about fixed principles, which seem to come conditionally unfixed at an alarming rate these days.

For instance, remember when all purported people-of-the-right were pro-free speech? As late as about five minutes ago? I always have been. And even if I weren’t a free-speech defender, naturally — and I most assuredly still am — I would force myself to be for selfish, professional reasons. Since my very livelihood has depended on freely expressing my own opinions (not always popular ones) for over 30 years.

I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but I learned early on in my civic education that what makes America, America (or at least the version of America that I truly love), is that even if I hate what you say, you have the right to say it, and I have to respect that right. I might want to throw an elbow to your solar plexus for saying it. But I can’t, at least not physically. (Though I can with my free speech.) Because the beauty of our marketplace of ideas is that you have the right to offend me, and I don’t have to shop at your booth, but I can’t shut it down. Which is traditionally what has made us, us. It’s not all screaming eagles and lofty Jeffersonian rhetoric. More often, it’s just about tolerating the people we can’t stand. Which made us the most dangerous country in the world, in a good way. Because nothing was so sacred that it couldn’t be questioned. Meaning we were constantly Working Things Out. A useful way to keep dishonest people more honest.

But now, we’re becoming dangerous for different reasons, and not in a good way. Plenty (including me) would say it happened during the Great Wokeness Scare of the twenty-teens. Others (including me) could point to what happened to Charlie Kirk last week, when someone who didn’t like the things he said (as I mostly didn’t) shot him through the throat. And now we’re seeing it with Jimmy Kimmel’s show getting yanked off the air by ABC after Trump’s FCC stooge, Brendan Carr, a man who looks like an inbred ferret (sorry, but I’m using my free speech while it still exists), overtly threatened the network on the podcast of another Trump dingleberry, Benny Johnson. Lots (though not all) of wingers will celebrate, of course, because Kimmel regularly did his job — a job they have no stomach for, and which they hated him for doing. As a late-night host in a long, irreverent American television tradition, it is, or was, Kimmel’s duty to mock absurdity. And nobody in our nation’s history has provided more absurdity-per-capita than their Dear Leader, of whom too many believe a harsh word should never be spoken. (Including and especially the Dear Leader himself, who just sued the New York Times for no good reason for $15 billion.) Which is why so many of these purported free-speech warriors aren’t for Free Speech, but for Me Speech, as the great anti-authoritarian writer, Timothy Snyder, just called it. Meaning they think they should be allowed to say whatever they want (however vile or untrue), but should be allowed to shut everyone else down as their curdled, desiccated spirits dictate.

Jimmy Kimmel, patriot

To be sure, the precipitating incident wasn’t one of Kimmel’s finest moments. While Charlie’s Kirk’s shooter’s political predilections were initially murky (he grew up in a Trumpy, pro-gun family, was not a registered voter by party affiliation, but seemed to make a strong, leftward drift when he took up with a transitioning man), Kimmel accused MAGA of politicizing Kirk’s death while refusing to acknowledge that the shooter was one of their own. (This seemingly turned out not to be the case, even if there were enough meme-tells in the shooter’s language to get him widely suspected of being an alt-right Groyper, so much so that Nick Fuentes, King of the Groypers, publicly complained about getting unfairly demonized.)

Did Kimmel make a mistake? Seemingly. Should he have apologized for it? Probably. But how many untrue things does Trump say on a daily basis, for which he never gets held to account, or apologizes? In his first term, back before Jeff Bezos hollowed out the Washington Post to make it more Trump-friendly, the Post documented how Trump made 30,573 false or misleading statements in four years. Which comes out to nearly 21 falsehoods PER DAY. An astounding level of dishonesty. And yet, how did Trump get punished? America reelected him in a near-landslide. Even as he faced multiple criminal indictments, for which his stacked Supreme Court virtually assured he would never face any penalty.

Should we really hold our late-night comics to a higher standard than we do the President of the United States? That’s the sad clown-show we want to live in?

And now the Sad-Clown-in Chief and his Insane Clown Posse have thrown the throttle open while clamping down on free speech, using Charlie Kirk’s death (and those who ghoulishly celebrated it), and every other excuse they can think of as pretext. Here are some Drudge headlines from just the last 24 hours:

MAGA Vows To Silence Foes
Will Prosecute ‘Hate’ Speech
Vance: Watch Your Mouth!
Troops Punished For Socials
Don Turns Darker
Threatens ABC’s Jon Karl To His Face
MAGA Intensifies Crackdown On Free Speech
Cancel Culture – Now Run By Conservatives
His Wife Called Kirk A ‘Nazi.’ He Was Fired
Texas Tech Student Who Protested Is Jailed, No Longer Enrolled
Critics See DOJ Carrying Out President’s Revenge

Mind you, while FCC Chair Brendan Carr didn’t have to officially do anything to get ABC to axe Kimmel, the noises he made alone were enough to cause an acute case of premature capitulation. Which is how it usually works in thugged-out societies. Create a climate of fear, and the fear does the work for you. The Gambino family member who shows up to the corner grocer’s, collecting tribute each week, never actually has to break the grocer’s legs to make his point. His just showing up is enough to stress what’s coming if compliance isn’t forthcoming. Causing the grocer to reach for the money in his till before any physical violence ever befalls him.

Of which Kimmel was similarly an obvious victim.

It’s popular, these days, to mock those who cite our authoritarian tilt as being hysterical, or having Trump Derangement Syndrome. Which is a lazy, stupid phrase meant to short circuit all valid criticism, and which I put the sword to here. But sometimes, if it looks, squawks, and barks like authoritarianism, it does so for a very simple reason:

Because it is.

If that’s the society you want to live in, feel free to dismiss what just happened to Jimmy Kimmel. But if it’s not, start taking your freedom more seriously, before you no longer have it.

 

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Posted
3 hours ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Kamala's team decided she needed to play nice and carry out a touch-feely podcast tour that cratered every bit of momentum she built up from the convention and debate.

Right. Just keep calling them weird and she would’ve won.

Christ. 

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Posted
2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

So, an interesting new trend: https://www.kvue.com/article/news/nation-world/new-poll-republicans-sour-on-path-for-us/507-8b3ce73e-357a-4ae5-9854-9147855b20d9?tbref=hp

I'll highlight the point that I find a bit interesting.

I find the shift really interesting, and the potential reason for it REALLY interesting.

We have a thread on here referring to the GOP as a "Trumpist death cult."  And there's something to that.  There is a strong thread of nihilism running through the movement; it's a "blow it all up," "inflict maximum pain on the other" kind of movement.  They're posing for smiling pictures at the "Alligator Alcatraz" sign, we all know that "the cruelty is the point," that sort of thing.  And, it's easy to fall into that worldview when you see yourself as The Main Character.  These are things you/your side DOES, they are NOT things that are done to you.

But the problem with "blowing it all up" (economy, education, all institutions, etc.), is that you live in the thing that you are blowing up.  So when that bomb of chaos that you've been cheering on blows up, you end up looking like this:

pancho096.jpg

And a parallel problem is with the cruelty, and the casually inflammatory attacks on "the other" (invaders, vermin, democrats are terrorists who must be eliminated), etc. is that it lights a fuse of violence.  Those of us NOT in MAGA land have seen it and sounded the alarm about it for years, particularly after signature events done in furtherance of the cause: El Paso, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Colorado Springs, the Hortmans, and on and on.  But not only does MAGA not care, they actually liked it.  Because functionally, all of the political violence was taking out "the other" or their enemies.  Why should they mind, the people they hate are getting what they deserve!

But again....the "political violence" bomb is NOT a carefully controlled explosion.  It is grenades repeatedly tossed into society as a whole.  And, eventually, the shrapnel from those grenades blows back on the people cheering them on.  Create an atmosphere that incites increasing political violence?  Well, they're fine with it.....so long as only "the other/the enemy" is the victim.  But....when the storm of violence comes to them, and one of their own....well, that changes things.

I am not taking the position that Charlie Kirk's murder was a good thing.  Not at all.  I have never, ever wanted our country to descend into political violence -- FFS, I've spent a decade being a cassandra about "fucking stop it, people, because this is the INEVITABLE outcome of where we're headed!"  I didn't want El Paso to happen, I didn't want Charlie Kirk's murder to happen.  None of it.  Instead, what I'm observing is that my observation and warning that "this ends in bloodshed" includes a footnote of "and you can't perfectly control where and how it goes, and it WILL get messy."  

And perhaps what the polling above is showing that once the fantasy world that some MAGAs have constructed -- where they can spew rage, hate, and anger, inciting and inflicting pain and violence willy-nilly -- turns into reality, which is messy, ugly, and involves bloodshed and death....some of them may lose their stomach for it.  It's all fun and games when we get to hate brown people and laugh about them being shackled, and not care (or only care in the most cursory of fashions) when they get slaughtered in a Wal-Mart because hey, they're invaders.  It's quite different when you realize that the beast of "stochastic terrorist violence" ultimately turns on you and yours, and can't be controlled, and that beast causes some awful, messy shit, in a society that you really, really want to be clean and pretty and well-functioning.  The ultimate lesson being that if you think society is too messy and chaotic, the solution isn't to inject hyper-chaos into the system; it's to do the long, slow, and hard work of cleaning up the mess and chaos.

MAYBE some of these people are seeing that, across the board, "make everything more chaotic" is both counterproductive as a whole, and causes harm and pain to the very people who have cheered it on.  I dunno.  Hoping that a group of people realize that "cause pain and blow everything up" is a terrible idea because we all live here together is an act of pure hopefulness, which y'all know ain't my bag.  But, I'm observing that COULD be part of what's reflected in this polling.

Or fuck, I dunno, the guy at the end asks the right question: Is Kirk the straw that breaks the camel's back or sets off a powder keg?  Thus far, the evidence we're seeing is that it set off a powder keg (one that MAGA has long-had primed, and they were eagerly waiting for the opportunity to light its fuse).  But that's the near-term, and certainly the action that the admin is taking.  But long-term....what are we going to see?  Which direction are the American people - or at least this important subset of them - going to go?

Stay tuned to find out.  But not to ABC or a Tegna station.

It's another species of the dog catching the car.  Now what?

Electoral hatred remains kind of an abstract proposition.  Once the administration starts implementing it, people are gonna flinch.

  • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
Posted

Where is the shit for brains Joe Rogan in all of this? He claims to be such a strong proponent of free speech, yet in a time when comedians are being censored for jokes, he’s silent. 

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
29 minutes ago, Vertuzzi said:

Where is the shit for brains Joe Rogan in all of this? He claims to be such a strong proponent of free speech, yet in a time when comedians are being censored for jokes, he’s silent. 

He's busy being captivated by a laser-dot cat toy.

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  • Haha 7
Posted
30 minutes ago, Vertuzzi said:

Where is the shit for brains Joe Rogan in all of this? He claims to be such a strong proponent of free speech, yet in a time when comedians are being censored for jokes, he’s silent. 

Where is everyone? Where is the guy with the big FREEDOM sticker on the back of his ugly truck? Where are all the gun people who have been stockpiling, just in case, you know, the government becomes something like it is now. 

Turned on MSNBC in my car, and the correspondent was calmly saying in a bored voice, "... and the President says he has the right to take programs off the air, and to take entire stations off the air, if that's what he wants. So I guess we'll see what this means for free speech (yawning). Back to you, inside lady at the desk." Then the anchor was like "Interesting, thanks for the report. Anyway, we turn to the Senate, where...." like she was reacting to a fucking weather report in Des Moines. 

  • Rage+1 3
Posted
3 hours ago, Red Five said:

Trump won the election because he won in a landslide with people who pay zero attention to news or politics. Seriously he won those people by something ridiculous like 35%. All the "hurr durr, I guess I'd like eggs a little cheaper so sure I'll vote for Trump" people, having no idea what that really meant. I don't want to put too much blame on Team Harris but they did a poor job of finding these people and sufficiently explaining what a Trump presidency would look like (this fucking hellscape we're living in now). 

This, and he did it by flooding the airwaves with really well done ads. I spent a lot of time in Arizona with family in the lead up to the election, and I couldn't watch anything from sports to daytime slop without seeing Donald ads. Kamala? Don't remember seeing any, but Gallego sure was fighting Kari 

Posted
1 minute ago, Doc Sam Beckett said:

This, and he did it by flooding the airwaves with really well done ads. I spent a lot of time in Arizona with family in the lead up to the election, and I couldn't watch anything from sports to daytime slop without seeing Donald ads. Kamala? Don't remember seeing any, but Gallego sure was fighting Kari 

They could barely be bothered to point out that they were running against a 34 time convicted felon (with about 50 more outstanding felony charges) and rapist and twice impeached former president who tried to end democracy. They did tell everyone a million times to go read Project 2025 though, which I'm sure all of those undecided egg voters did. 

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Posted
5 minutes ago, Red Five said:

They could barely be bothered to point out that they were running against a 34 time convicted felon (with about 50 more outstanding felony charges) and rapist and twice impeached former president who tried to end democracy. They did tell everyone a million times to go read Project 2025 though, which I'm sure all of those undecided egg voters did. 

You make a good point BUT eggs were expensive and there was a trans swimmer somewhere in the country that competed against some girls unfairly.  I mean priorities.

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Posted
4 hours ago, Vegas64 said:

I think that, much like Covid-19 was a huge event that threw MAGA's best laid plans off course, the thing that likely ushers in Newsom in 2028 is the AI bubble pop and the big recession/depression that follows. That's the likely trajectory and hope. Right now AI-powered stock market is the only thing keeping most non-liberal (center-left/center all the way to the far reaches of the alt-right) from caring too much about the near daily erosions of the republic.

Only challenge here is CA will be one of the states most impacted by this happening. So Newsom may actually get caught in this backwash. 

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Posted
21 minutes ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

You make a good point BUT eggs were expensive and there was a trans swimmer somewhere in the country that competed against some girls unfairly.  I mean priorities.

The best part about the trans swimmer thing was Gaines tied for 5th place or something with the swimmer she is bitching about.  It made zero difference in her standing.  Also Gaines is married to an immigrant without a green card.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
18 minutes ago, Red Five said:

It's called lying. Lots and lots of lying. 

And perhaps a dash or three of cheating.

Posted
2 hours ago, Vertuzzi said:

Where is the shit for brains Joe Rogan in all of this? He claims to be such a strong proponent of free speech, yet in a time when comedians are being censored for jokes, he’s silent. 

He's talking about how much he loves James Talarico. But he just plays up his affection for all his guests, so who the fuck knows.

Posted
31 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:

Ramsay Bolton Got GIF - Ramsay Bolton GOT Game Of Thrones - Discover &  Share GIFs

Depends on what you mean by "ending."  There's a good chance we get to what looks like a happy ending.  I think it's a couple of generations from now.  AFTER we go through sheer hell and stack up bodies and blood.  But the folks who say "it'll all end up alright" aren't entirely wrong.  Humanity survives.

The question is the cost we incur to get to that brighter day. You could have said "it'll end up alright" in Europe in the early 1930s, and been dead-right: go to London or Berlin today, they're amazing cities.  So, it ended up alright.  Just took decades of suffering and millions of lives ended or ruined to get there.  Oh well, want an omellete, gotta break a few million eggs human beings!



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